The subject matter herein relates generally to an electrical connector that is configured to be mounted on a circuit board.
Some electrical systems utilize electrical connectors, such as receptacle connectors and header connectors, to interconnect two circuit boards, such as a motherboard and daughtercard. In some systems, to electrically connect the electrical connectors, a midplane circuit board is provided with front and rear header connectors on opposed front and rear sides of the midplane circuit board. Other systems electrically connect the circuit boards without the use of a midplane circuit board by directly connecting electrical connectors on the circuit boards.
The circuit boards associated with the electrical connectors have vias that receive compliant tails of the electrical connectors and signal traces routed from the vias. Due to size constraints of the electrical connectors and the circuit boards, the high density of the electrical connectors and the desire for smaller connector footprints, the signal traces are routed in close proximity to one another and are routed away from the connector footprint in multiple layers of the circuit board. As the density increases, the number of layers needed to route the signal traces from the footprint is increased. Having thicker circuit boards is undesirable and more expensive to manufacture. Additionally, when other components are mounted to the circuit board, the traces associated with each component footprint need to be routed around all other footprints, thereby increasing the overall size of the circuit board.
A need remains for an electrical connector that facilitates routing of signal traces in a circuit board on which the connector is mounted.